Bard College, University at Buffalo and SUNY Broome Community College each won $1 million as part of Governor Cuomo's Energy to Lead Competition. The competition, first announced in October 2015, challenged student-led coalitions from New York colleges and universities to design and develop innovative plans for campus and community-wide clean energy projects. Applicants were required to demonstrate innovation in one or more of the following areas: project design, business model, partnerships and/or curriculum integration.

The new $1.5 million Sustainability Revolving Fund will be a self-replenishing program that will be used to fund capital-intensive energy and water efficiency projects across campus. The program is made possible by a $500,000 grant from The Kendeda Fund. The grant was matched by a $1 million investment by the university.

The university is investing $1 million to seed the new green revolving fund, designed to encourage the community to look at the entire campus as a laboratory, classroom and testing ground for energy-saving ideas. The idea originated from a 2012 student-led research project suggesting the fund could offer a payoff to the university in cost savings, innovation, learning opportunities and create a greener campus.

The university's new green revolving fund is a student-driven investment fund that will be used to implement energy efficiency and sustainability projects on campus. The idea and plan for the fund came from a course in the university's School of Business that introduces ideas for how sustainable practices can generate a competitive business advantage.

The new $95,000 grant from Duke Energy's Water Resources Fund will help the university to protect and enhance the region’s waterways and environment. With the funds, Furman will restore a wetland habitat and build floating marsh islands. The project will be the basis for student-faculty ecological research and community education. Matching funds from the university will construct a pedestrian bridge and provide educational signage. The grant is part of Duke Energy’s Water Resources Fund, a $10 million, multiyear commitment to improve water quality and conservation in the North and South Carolina and neighboring regions.

Following his initial $165,000 gift in 2015 to help launch the university's International Institute for Environmental Studies, Dr. Justin Chiu '76 recently donated $1.5 million in support of the institute, which is in partnership with Nanjing University, to bring experts from universities around the world together to tackle international environmental issues.

Founded with an initial pool of $200,000, the college's new Green to Gold revolving fund will finance sustainability projects that reduce resource use or greenhouse gas emissions. First in the queue is a lighting retrofit for a campus parking garage that will replace inefficient metal halide and high-pressure sodium fixtures with LED lights, providing a 70 percent energy reduction for that deck.

In April 2016, Fossil Free Universities released a video compilation on Facebook about higher education students in Australia that used creative and powerful actions to signal their preference for universities to divest from fossil energy.

After 18 months of considering divestiture, the university's Board of Governors adopted a report, Addressing Global Warming: The uOttawa Response, that outlines its move to develop a strategy to shift fossil-related investments toward enterprises involved in creating and selling technologies that include renewable energy and other clean technology solutions.

After a comprehensive study conducted by a special subcommittee of the President's Council on Sustainability, the university's Board of Visitors requested the foundation board revise its investment policy to limit discretionary fossil fuel investments to a range of zero to four percent, with a target of two percent or less. The subcommittee determined that complete divestment from fossil fuel funds presented practical challenges as well as the potential for a negative impact upon the foundation’s investment portfolio.

The first university in the state to obtain 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, the university implemented energy conservation and reduced consumption before purchasing renewable energy credits. The university’s goal is to be carbon neutral by 2050.

A student-led movement at the university aimed at pressuring the university to pull its investment money out of coal, oil and natural gas companies has recently announced its participation in the Multi-School Fossil Free Divestment Fund. Until the university makes an official statement pledging to divest itself from fossil fuels, the money in the multi-school fund will remain in escrow. The Multi-School Fossil Free Divestment Fund includes participation from more than 30 schools nationwide.

The National Disaster Resilience Competition, held by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, awarded the two universities and several partners $54.3 million to build on a project that began after Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012. A coalition of regulators, municipalities and university researchers designed a demonstration project in Bridgeport, Connecticut, that works with the ecology and shoreline geography to protect critical energy infrastructure and residents in one of the state’s poorest, most vulnerable neighborhoods. Most of the federal money will go toward elevating a street that runs through the University of Bridgeport and constructing a greenway earthen berm to protect the community against storm surges.

The Associated Press reports that Congress and campus activists have stepped up pressure on colleges and universities to reveal financial investments made through their endowments. While lawmakers are questioning whether to tax colleges on investment portfolios, activists, including alumni and students, are demanding to know if investments are held in certain industries. An inquiry by The Associated Press to 50 public and private universities asking them to disclose their investments revealed "most schools issue annual reports with broad information and few details about specific investments".

Nearly 20 universities recently announced the formal launch of the Intentional Endowments Network. To support the development of intentionally designed endowments, the network facilitates peer-to-peer connection and learning, thought leadership and collaborative action. This peer-learning network engages senior decision-makers and key stakeholders in dialogue around the full range of options related to sustainable investing.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and Cornell University, along with Distributed Sun and Building Energy, announced that new rooftop solar arrays have been installed atop two university buildings to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a clean energy future. The university received support for these solar projects under New York Governor Cuomo's $1 billion NY-Sun Initiative, administered by NYSERDA, which is designed to advance the scale-up of solar and move New York State closer to having a sustainable, self-sufficient solar industry.

Philip Knight, the co-founder and chairman of Nike Inc., said recently that he had pledged to give Stanford University $400 million to recruit graduate students around the globe to address society’s most intractable problems, including poverty and climate change. Starting in 2018, the program will annually offer full tuition and board to 100 students, a third of them from the U.S. and two-thirds from abroad, who will gain admittance to one of Stanford’s seven graduate schools and commit to working on important issues in small, multidisciplinary teams.

Bowdoin College announces a new center for the study of the environment, funded with a $10 million gift from David and Barbara Roux of Virginia. The center aims to encourage collaboration and creativity in the teaching and scholarship of the environment. The new building to house the center is being designed to achieve USGBC LEED Platinum designation and is expected to open in the mid-to-late fall of 2018.

(U.K.): The National Union of Students (NUS), a U.K.-based membership organization, recently called for a divest-invest campaign that calls for universities and colleges to transfer 100 million pounds ($142.6 million) out of fossil fuels into renewable energy. This campaign launched after a freedom of information request revealed 180 million pounds is invested in fossil fuels. The NUS also conducted a survey that concluded both students and staff strongly support divestment. The NUS plans to support students' unions as they push their institutions to divest.

After pressure from the Afrikan Black Coalition, the university sold approximately $25 million worth of indirect investments in private prison corporations after the black student union revealed in November that the university held shares in private prisons. University shares in the private prisons, which were part of a portfolio, were sold on Dec. 1, 2015.

The UMass Foundation recently announced that it will divest from direct investments in coal companies. The foundation also said that it will continue to evaluate ways to manage the endowment in a manner that promotes both environmental sustainability and socially responsible investing. The foundation oversees $770 million in endowment assets for the UMass System.

The ESF College Foundation along with SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) and the board of trustees has committed to divest from indirect investments in the 200 companies identified by Carbon Underground as the top fossil fuel companies, based on potential climate impact. The university currently has no direct holdings and will not have any in the future.

The school recently pledged to continue to ensure that no direct investments are made in fossil fuels and that it will seek to reduce investment placed indirectly through investment funds in companies whose business is significantly focused on thermal coal or tar sands. It will also avoid investment in companies engaged in tobacco manufacture and indiscriminate armaments.

(U.K.): The university's new endowment investment policy includes several socially responsible aspects, including a commitment to eliminate exposure to investments linked to explicit environmental damage. Given the overwhelming evidence of the impact of fossil fuels on climate change, this commitment will lead the university to disinvest within the next academic year.

Northwestern University will join Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley by adopting the U.N.-supported Principles of Responsible Investing, which address the importance of environmental, social and corporate governance issues to consider when making investment choices.

Videos from the university's conference on the how-to of divestment-investment are now online. The university brought together more than 100 investment experts, religious leaders, students and activists to share their institutions' experiences in divestment and investment in renewable energy.

On Nov. 4, the Student Government Association passed a bill urging the university system chancellor to freeze expansion of all investments in fossil fuel companies, form a task force to assess methods of fossil fuel divestment, sell off those investments within five years, and reinvest in clean renewable energy companies.

The Foram Group Charitable Foundation recently presented a $100,000 check to fund the creation of Armstrong State University’s Aquaponics Research Center, whose mission is to conduct cutting-edge research and to develop technologies and best practices that improve the sustainability and profitability of soilless farming techniques.

The recent article from Inside Higher Ed offers two opposing analyses of divestment from fossil fuels. The article goes on to discuss different strategies and reasons that some universities and colleges have for divestment and investment.

This semester marks a significant milestone for the university's Sustainability Fund. Since 2011, more than $1 million has been granted to 72 projects that promote environmental sustainability and positively impact the student experience.

In response to a petition from alumni, faculty, staff and students calling for endowment divestment from fossil fuels, the college's board of trustees recently announced a $50 million investment effort to address climate change through a comprehensive set of initiatives targeted at reducing carbon emissions, obtaining carbon neutrality by 2020, and educational efforts related to climate change.

With $30 million from The Kendeda Fund, the university plans to construct a zero net energy and water consumption, education and research facility that will integrate into the university's Eco-Commons, a series of spaces designed to conserve natural resources and provide educational and recreational amenities. The project is slated to become a Living Building Challenge 3.0-certified facility.

The university system has sold off its endowment and pension fund holdings in coal and oil sands companies, a $200-million move that officials recently announced was in response to both environmental concerns and rising financial risk in those industries. The university has no plans to sell off holdings in oil and natural gas.

County natives Samuel and Dena Lombardo donated the $1 million toward the net zero welcome center building, expected to use solar panels, water conservation and renewable building materials and host more than 10,000 visitors annually.

Using a cash-flow neutral strategy that aligns the cost of payments to annual energy savings, the university will implement a new co-generation central heating plant that is projected to carry a $1.6 million per year avoidance in energy expenditures. The university's financing partner is First American Education Finance.

The conference will engage Pope Francis’ call to action by convening representatives from Catholic institutions to discuss theological and ethical underpinnings of divest and invest initiatives, financial mechanics of fossil fuel divestment and opportunities for renewable energy investment, lesson learned from the divestment movement, and ecumenical coalitions for responses to climate change.

The $2.8 million grant for the center's construction is part of economic development funding for 19 projects across New York by Empire State Development. The new center will allow the university to conduct specialized research and testing on renewable energy systems and high-temperature battery applications.

The university's Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future has given $1.2 million to 11 new projects that include water cleanup, home retrofits, solar power's impact on pollinating bees, oyster revival, research on ground-source heating and cooling, and wind energy. The grants will enable teams to obtain initial data or proof of principle to find external collaborators.

In June 2015, The university's board of trustees unanimously supported a motion to divest its endowed funds from fossil fuel investments and further directed the university to pursue socially responsible investment strategies. The university in the process of developing a comprehensive sustainability master plan to align with its strategic plan.

Following a student activist campaign, the university's trustees decided to divest its endowment from two private companies that run prisons, detention centers, and militarized borders, and will refrain from investing in such companies again.

The university's board of directors recently passed a resolution stating that the university will not make or continue any direct investments of endowment funds in companies whose principal business is mining coal for use in energy production.

At its May meeting, the school’s board of trustees voted unanimously to divest the college endowment from investments in fossil fuel extraction-company stocks and bonds. The decision came after a two-year study was prompted by students and faculty.

(U.K.) The University Council has voted to support a wide-ranging investigation of the university’s 2.2 billion pounds ($3.4 billion) endowments fund. Aiming to make investment more environmentally and socially responsible, the review plans to last a year and involve collaboration from students, academics and staff.

(U.K.): The Oxford University Endowment Management, OUem, a university subsidiary established to manage the funds, does not have direct holdings in coal and oil sands companies and has been asked by the university's executive governing body to maintain this position.

The decision to divest the university's $66 million endowment from fossil fuels came after a task group comprised of university regents, students, faculty and staff investigated divestiture. The group worked closely with the board's investment firm to evaluate options and impacts, and affirmed to take action in investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and changing behaviors.

(U.K.): After a recent meeting of the university's Investment Committee, it decided to write to three of the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers to inform them that it intends to fully divest from their activities within the next six months. As part of its promised engagement process prior to divestment, the university will give the companies the opportunity to respond in the next four weeks.

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The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education is a membership association of colleges & universities, businesses, and nonprofits who are working together to lead the sustainability transformation. Learn more about AASHE's mission.